Introducing the Honourable Phryne Fisher (48 page)

‘That is true.’

‘And that you like intelligent girls.’

‘Yes.’

‘And you adopted her.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Phryne, wondering what was coming.

‘I’m intelligent and I can work hard and I have always looked after Jane. What’ll she do without me? You should take both of us, Miss, not just pick one like kittens out of a litter.’

Jane laid her hand on Ruth’s shoulder and looked at Phryne. Ruth bit the end of one plait reflectively. Then she took up her fork and swallowed the piece of chop impaled on it, as though she was not sure when she would get another meal.

Phryne smiled. ‘Two are better than one,’ she said. ‘I was wondering how Jane would manage in this rackety house on her own. All right, Ruth. You too. Any relatives?’

‘No,’ affirmed Ruth, and took some more bread, thankful for the first time in her life that she was an orphan.

‘I’ll call that irritating solicitor tomorrow and get it all put through legally. But you will have to go to school, girls, through term, and you can come back here in the holidays. You can do anything you like, as long as you are willing to work for it. And you must never say anything about my cases, nothing at all, do you understand?’

Both heads nodded. They understood. Ruth grinned a huge grin and slapped Jane on the shoulder.

‘No more Miss Gay, Jane, no more Seddon, no more of the Great Hypno and, best of all . . .’

‘Best of all?’ asked Phryne.

‘No more dishes,’ concluded Ruth, and hugged Jane so hard that Ember scratched her.

Phryne finished her dinner and went upstairs to change, wondering what she should wear to a glee club singalong. She decided on comfort—dark trousers and jacket, and her sheepskin overcoat, perfect for the chill, dark night which it promised to be.

She was coming downstairs when the phone rang, and she picked up the receiver. It was Detective-inspector Robinson, evidently in an elated mood.

‘Miss Fisher? Ah! Answering your own phone? This’ll never do—I just rang to tell you about our scoundrel.’

‘Oh? Which one?’

The policeman chuckled. ‘Burton. He’s out of hospital and helping us with our inquiries. He’s singing like a canary, unlike that prize bitch of a wife of his.’

‘What? Married to Miss Gay?’

‘Indeed. The wounds to his eyes ain’t serious—just scratches—but he seems to have lost his power. Tried mesmerising one of my constables—you never had such a laugh in all your life.’

‘Be careful of him, Jack, he’s dangerous.’

‘Miss Fisher, it’s well known that you can’t be hypnotised if you don’t want to be. He’s lost his fangs, all right.’

‘His dentist will have to fit him with an entirely new set. Congratulations.’

‘Thanks, Miss Fisher. And another thing, I got a reply from Thomas, you know, the sergeant down at Rye on leave?’

‘And?’

‘Can’t say yes or no. Said he remembered the man, but couldn’t say if that was him or not. Said it was an odd case—he didn’t seem very drunk, but when the beat constable passed him by, he tripped him and then tried to steal his helmet. Young gentlemen will have their tricks, especially young university gentlemen.’

‘Indeed. Well, that’s about all that we can do at present. Oh, Jack, I forgot to tell you. I have an eyewitness to the murder, who saw what happened and can identify the murderer.’

‘An eyewitness to the murder, Miss Fisher? Who?’

‘Jane, I told you she had remembered. Listen.’ Phryne told the story of Jane’s grandmother and the manner of her death.

‘It appears that the old woman hanged in a noose against a lighted window is what shocked the child out of the trance your harmless Mr Burton had put her into, and she saw the man on the water tower.’

‘She saw him?’ exclaimed Jack Robinson. ‘To know again?’

‘So she says,’ replied Phryne. ‘I’ll bring her tomorrow to look at photographs. All right?’

‘Tomorrow,’ agreed Jack Robinson.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

He had softly and silently vanished away . . .

Lewis Carroll
The Hunting of the Snark

Ruthie and Jane had so much to catch up with that Phryne suggested moving Ruth’s camp-bed into Jane’s room. She knew that they would talk all night, but thought that they might as well do it in comfort. Jane was regaining her past in large chunks, and Phryne hoped that it would not prove too indigestible.

Ruth, Jane and Ember partook of a light supper of bread-and-butter and hot milk, then they all snuggled into Jane’s bed so that they could talk without being heard. It was a cold night, but the girls and the kitten were warm in their nest under the eiderdown with the jazz-coloured cover. Phryne looked in on them as she was going out.

‘Goodnight, my dears,’ she said, and heard the chorused ‘Goodnight, Miss Fisher’ from the heaped covers. She smiled and closed the door.

‘Dot, I’m going to this glee club do, only because I promised to bring the beer. Go to bed, old thing, and don’t worry. Mr B.! All the crates safely stowed?’

‘Yes, Miss Fisher, all secure.’

‘All right, I’m off—I may bring company home, but I shan’t need you again tonight. Everyone can go to bed. We’ve all had too much excitement lately. All the locks and things up, Mr Butler? Good. Well, sleep tight,’ said Phryne, and sailed out into the night, a furry cap on her head, huddled in the sheepskin coat, and looking like a rather dapper member of the Tsar’s entourage of female soldiers. She started the Hispano-Suiza without trouble, steered her carefully into The Esplanade, and turned her nose for the city. The wind whipped her face, tearing at her hair, and she laughed aloud into the rainy dark. It was fine to be on the road with all this power at one’s fingertips! She leaned on the accelerator, and the car leapt like a deer under her hand.

She rolled carefully down the unmade road to the boathouse, and it was obvious that there was revelry afoot. The boathouse, a rather rickety two-storey construction with a balcony, was lit with lanterns, as were several of the surrounding trees. There was a measured chorus of voices singing Blake’s ‘Jerusalem’. Phryne stopped the car and listened. It was perfect. The rain drifted softly down, the river ran with a slap and gurgle, and the voices, from highest sop to lowest bass, were blended as finely as a Ritz Hotel cocktail.

Bring me my bow of burning gold

Bring me my arrows of desire

Bring me my spear, Oh! Clouds, unfold!

Bring me my chariot of fire!

Blake really was an excellent poet, Phryne reflected, lighting a cigarette and leaning back on the leather upholstery, though regrettably mad, as poets so often are.

The song finished. Several people came out onto the balcony, and one girl exclaimed in a high-pitched voice, somewhat affected by gin, ‘Oh, I say! What a spiffing car!’

‘That must be Miss Fisher,’ someone else commented. ‘I hope she’s remembered the beer!’

‘I have remembered the beer,’ she called up. ‘But you’ll have to carry it yourself.’

There was a clatter of feet, and several young men erupted out of the boathouse and down the steps.

‘Oh, Miss Fisher, I’m so glad that you could come. Let me help you out, what an amazin’ car! Very kind of you to bring some refreshments for the lads . . . and the girls, of course, I was forgetting. Connors, you and Tommy Jones get the beer, will you? Do you remember me, Miss Fisher?’

Phryne accepted the eager clasp and extracted herself from the driving seat, summoning up the name to match the bright, intelligent face.

‘Of course I remember you,’ she temporised. ‘Aaron Black, that’s who you are. Well? What about the bet?’

‘You can call on me for a row down the river in a real boat,’ he confessed, grinning. ‘They know several much ruder songs than we have heard. But we are learning. We think that we should put the two societies together, Miss Fisher, I mean, silly, isn’t it, in these days of equality, females all over the shop, I mean, women students in Medicine and even in Law; silly to have separate singing, when all parts in music are of equal value. What do you think of it?’

Phryne allowed herself to be led up the stairs by this charming young man, past a series of boats stored in racks like coffins, and up onto a plain dancing floor, with a servery in one corner and the balcony at the end.

‘It’s a bit of a crush,’ apologised Connors, panting past with a crate. ‘I always think that the balcony is not going to make it through another party, but it has managed so far.’

‘Beer?’ cried a huge young man, seizing the crate and extracting a bottle. He bit off the cap and gulped half the contents before his outraged friend regained possession.

‘Beer!’ he said with a delighted smile, and grabbed for the bottle again.

‘Behave yourself, oaf! This is Miss Fisher, donor of all that amber liquid and some plonk for the ladies, so be civil.’

The huge dark young man took up Phryne’s gloved hand with wincing delicacy and bestowed a respectful kiss.

‘Madam, your kindness overwhelms us . . . can I have my bottle back now, Aaron?’

Aaron returned the bottle, seeing that Phryne was amused, and the chorus began on a sad tale of a young maid who was poor (but she was honest). Phryne sighted Alastair across the room, scowling, and the beautiful and diverting Lindsay near him, looking embarrassed. Then two young women claimed Phryne’s attention and a bottle of her wine, and she elbowed her way out onto the balcony, where there was a wicker garden-seat.

‘What do you think of this idea of putting the two societies together, Miss Fisher?’ asked the blonde girl, gnawing at an ink-stained fingernail. ‘They are pretty rough types, these Glee-ers.’

‘Nonsense, Marion,’ retorted her companion, who was thin and stylish and would be elegant when she started wearing stockings. ‘They’re nervous around us. Once they see that we aren’t put off by the vulgarity they’ll be all right. And we need some basses if we are to put on that B Minor Mass you’re always talking about.’

‘I suppose so. The world has a lot of men in it, doesn’t it? It won’t do just to pretend that they don’t exist. Miss Fisher, we are devoted admirers of yours. We read all of your cases. Are you engaged in one at the moment?’

‘Why, yes, I am engaged in the cases of the vanishing lady and the appearing lady; one died and one is alive.’

‘Ooh, a riddle! Let’s see if we can guess it. Do you want some of this wine? It’s rather good,’ said Marion. ‘Let’s get Alastair onto it, he’s frightfully good at riddles.’

‘Alastair!’ shrieked the other girl, but Alastair did not seem to have heard her. He turned his back to the balcony and was arguing with Lindsay.

‘What’s wrong with him lately?’ demanded Agnes. ‘He’s terribly shirty at the moment. Used to be a good enough chap, too, though a shark for the books.’

‘I’m doing Arts,’ explained Marion. ‘Agnes here is doing Medicine. So is that Alastair chap, and he was rather fun, though over the last year he’s been awfully dull. Does nothing but talk about money.’

Phryne accepted some of the wine, a good traminer riesling from the Hunter Valley which she had personally selected as being light and sweet enough for a student’s taste. No glass being evident, she drank out of the bottle, sharing it with the two girls.

‘I don’t know that one,’ remarked Agnes. ‘What are the men singing?’

Behind the door, her pappy kept a shotgun,

He kept it in December and the merry month of May

And when they asked him why the heck he kept it

he kept it for a student who is far, far away

‘Far away,’ carolled the tenors, ‘Far away,’ growled the basses, ‘He kept it for a student who is far, far away.’

‘That’s a good song, we must learn it. Look here, Agnes, I think you’re right. It sounds much better with us all singing together. So much more balanced. Not shrill, like we used to sound.’

‘Ah, and you should have heard us,’ commented Lindsay from behind Phryne. ‘We growled like bears with sore heads. Now the sound is quite perfect.’

‘Not quite perfect,’ disagreed Johnson, poking his head under Lindsay’s arm. ‘There is a lot of dissonance which can be removed by rehearsal. We need to knock the raw edges off and get used to singing in time with each other. Listen. One half of the room is out of tempo with the other half.’

This was true. Someone had started the old catch, ‘My man Tom has a thing that is long,’ which the girls also knew. ‘My maid Mary has a thing that is hairy,’ they replied, but somehow got irremedially out of synch, so it was hard to tell whose thing was long and whose thing was hairy. Eventually cacophony was reached and they broke off, laughing.

‘Was that as indelicate as it sounded?’ asked Phryne, and Marion blushed. ‘It’s a broom and a broom stick.’ Phryne laughed and had another mouthful of wine. It was cold and dark outside, and the rain slanted down in sheets, but in the boathouse it was very warm, and the wine was delicious, and the singing was (occasionally) excellent. Phryne relaxed for the first time since she had left the bed with Lindsay in it, and produced a flask of cointreau.

This drink was new to many who tasted it, and it seemed to have a powerful effect. Edwards, the music student, suggested a negro spiritual, and they began to sing ‘Swing low, Sweet Chariot’. The battery of voices in that confined space, all trained to hit a note so that it went down and stayed down, was terrific. Phryne felt tears prick her eyes, as she joined in, and Marion was openly snuffling.

I looked over Jordan, and what did I see?

Coming for to carry me home

A band of Angels coming after me

Coming for to carry me home.

Before the impact of the song had time to die away, Edwards was pushed aside and the bespectacled madrigal enthusiast flourished a pile of sheet music.

‘Sops on the right, basses on the left,’ he ordered, and Phryne was left alone on the balcony.

She reclaimed her flask and sat staring out into the night, enjoying the rain, until she felt a hand slide up her calf to her knee and she covered it with her own.

‘It’s me, dear lady,’ said Lindsay’s voice from the floor, where he was lying out of sight of his fellow choristers. ‘Have you forgotten me so soon?’

‘No, dear boy, I haven’t forgotten anything at all. Come and sit next to me, or do you like it there on the floor?’

‘If they see me I shall be dragged off to sing—I like it better here. How smooth your legs are. Smoother than anything I can think of, except your thighs.’

‘You are an impudent young man,’ said Phryne, catching her breath. ‘What were you quarelling with Alastair about?’

‘Does it matter?’ asked Lindsay, laying his head in her lap. ‘Will you take me away and ravish me again tonight?’

‘Perhaps, if you merit ravishing. What was the quarrel?’

‘How tiresome you are, I shall be jealous of Alastair, you are so interested in him. If you must know, he wants to move out of my house, and he has packed up all his things. I was asking him where he was going to go, and he took me up uncommonly short and told me it was none of my business, which, of course, it isn’t.’

‘When is he to go? Stop fooling, Lindsay, this is important.’

‘Tomorrow,’ replied Lindsay, hurt. ‘I don’t know where he’s going but I think that it might not be unconnected with the not-so-blushing beauty and the money. Funny, you know, that was the night I spent in the jug.’

‘You
what
?’

‘Oh, I hadn’t done anything wrong,’ protested Lindsay. ‘Old Alastair used to have spiffing ideas, you know, before he went strange.’

‘Did he?’ asked Phryne in a tone so compelling that Lindsay got up from the floor and faced her. ‘What did old Alastair suggest?’

‘Well, it was like this,’ he stammered, staring into the face of a fury, cut out of marble, with eyes of green ice. ‘He said that if I was going to be a lawyer I ought to understand about prisons, and the only way to really understand a prison is to be in one, and he said that I should get myself taken up for drunk and disorderly and be locked in overnight. Everyone gives a false name, you know. For God’s sake, Phryne, what’s wrong? What have I done?’

‘Where’s Alastair?’ she asked through numb lips, and scanned the room; an easy thing, since Alastair should have been with the tenors, and he was not there.

‘Come,’ cried Phryne. She shinned down the verandah pole, leapt and raced for her car, with the young man behind and gaining fast. Phryne threw herself into the driving seat and jabbed the self-starter. The powerful engine turned over with a roar.

‘Where are we going?’ yelled Lindsay.

Phryne cried, ‘We are going to prevent another murder—if we get there in time.’

Lindsay hung on as the Hispano-Suiza, howling on all cylinders, rocketed over the lumpy track and into the road.

Lindsay did not know that cars could go that fast. Phryne, when roused, could drive like a demon, having taken lessons from Miss May Cunliffe, the Cairo to London Road Race winner. Phryne had strong nerves and wiry wrists, and the engine of the Hispano-Suiza had been built for racing. The rain drummed on the roof and the windshield; the lights smeared as though marked with vaseline.

Lindsay hung on, cheering, exultant; Phryne clutched the wheel and bit her lip and hoped that she had guessed where the murderer was going.

After ten minutes, Lindsay said, ‘Phryne, we are going home, I mean, to your house, are we not? What do you think is going to happen there?’

‘I don’t know,’ snapped Phryne, skidding around a slow trundling truck. ‘Reach into the side pocket, will you?’

‘My God, Miss Fisher, a gun?’

‘Can you use it?’

‘Yes,’ agreed Lindsay dubiously. ‘I’ve fired one before.’

‘Good. Just try not to kill anyone with it. Now, listen. When we get to the house I want you to walk noisily down the left sideway, and I’ll go down the right. Make a lot of noise. Sing, if you like. Be genial and drunken if he is there. Hold him until help comes. Can you do it?’

Phryne felt, rather than saw, the spine stiffen and the jaw harden. There was good stuff in the young man.